Trump admits he's fielding urgent calls on firing Hegseth - and says he'd be a 'popular' Senator

READ MORE: Trump purge BEGINS as insiders name scapegoat Which US president best reflects YOUR political views? Published: 10:00 EDT, 5 November 2026 | Updated: 10:06 EDT, 5 November 2026 Donald Trump has admitted he is fielding calls urging him to fire Pete Hegseth, but insists he will keep his Defense Secretary, hours after the Daily Mail revealed he was quietly asking advisers whether to ditch him.'I have every intention to keep him,' the president told ABC News.But he conceded the Pentagon chief has critics in his ear. 'I get these calls, you know, about him. I don't understand why,' Trump added.The public show of support sits awkwardly with the picture insiders gave the Daily Mail, who said Trump spent Wednesday working the phones and asking a handful of close advisers whether Hegseth should keep his job.Those sources now expect him to be gone before the new Congress is sworn in, a deadline driven less by the President's anger than by Senate arithmetic.'Trump is making phone calls, contemplating it,' said a senior Republican.Trump admitted it would be easier to confirm a new Defense Secretary before Democrats take control of the Senate in January.Any nominee must clear a hearing and a vote in the Senate Armed Services Committee before a simple-majority vote on the floor. Republicans control both until the new Congress is sworn in in early January, when Democrats take the committee gavel and the floor calendar. Donald Trump speaks on the day the final steel beam goes into the ballroom, at the White House in Washington, DC, US, November 4 US Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth speaks during a Cabinet meeting hosted by US President Donald Trump at Camp David in Maryland, on July 31Hegseth himself only scraped through in January 2025, when JD Vance cast the tie-breaking vote to confirm him 51-50.Talk has already turned to a soft landing for Hegseth: the Tennessee Senate seat Marsha Blackburn will vacate when she is sworn in as governor on January 17, giving her the power to pick her own replacement.Knox County Mayor Glenn Jacobs, the former WWE wrestler known as Kane, and Congressman Tim Burchett had been seen as frontrunners for the appointment.'I actually think he'd be very popular if he did that. But I haven't heard that at all,' Trump told reporters at his White House ballroom construction site on Wednesday.After GOP operatives hungry for a scapegoat circled chief of staff Susie Wiles and even Secretary of State Marco Rubio, the Pentagon chief has emerged as the name in the frame.Trump has learned that Hegseth kept information about key developments in the Iran war from him, insiders told the Daily Mail.'There's always some new information that he's being told after the fact,' said a White House insider, who described Trump demanding to know why Iran's surface-to-air defenses and missiles had not yet been destroyed, after Hegseth had claimed on several occasions that the US military had eliminated them. The incoming Democratic House is expected to pursue Hegseth, raising the prospect of an impeachment and Senate trial nobody in the West Wing wants.The White House has officially dismissed the talk, with spokeswoman Anna Kelly saying the President retains full confidence in Hegseth.A Pentagon spokesperson agreed, saying: 'Secretary Hegseth always provides the President and White House senior leaders with the full operational picture.'